Arsia Mons: Mars Volcanoes and Dinosaurs on earth extinct at the same time, says NASA

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Flipboard
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
This digital-image mosaic of Mars' Tharsis plateau shows the extinct volcano Arsia Mons. It was assembled from images that the Viking 1 Orbiter took during its 1976-1980 working life at Mars. Credits: NASA
This digital-image mosaic of Mars' Tharsis plateau shows the extinct volcano Arsia Mons. It was assembled from images that the Viking 1 Orbiter took during its 1976-1980 working life at Mars. Credits: NASA

New Delhi : Planet Mars saw its last volcanic eruption during the time when dinosaurs became extinct from the earth, reveals a new research. Arsia Mons, southernmost volcano on Mars, is believed to be last location where eruption had occurred. But, time had been a mystery so far for the researchers.

Thanks to the new computer technology, scientists have finally managed to reveal the time of last volcanic eruption on red planet. According to the model, volcanic activity at Arsia Mons came to a halt about 50 million years ago, same time when dinosaurs went disappeared from the earth.

Jacob Richardson, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and co-author of the new study, presented the findings today (March 20) at the 48th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands, Texas.

"We estimate that the peak activity for the volcanic field at the summit of Arsia Mons probably occurred approximately 150 million years ago — the late Jurassic period on Earth — and then died out around the same time as Earth’s dinosaurs," Richardson said in a statement.

The results of the study were published in January in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.